NGOs IN INDIA- UNIQUENESS AND CRITICAL SUCCESSFACTORS, RESULTS OF AN FGD

Sridhar M.K. and Manasa Nagabhushanam

In the last few decades, in India, NGOs have grown toplay an important role in providing various servicesto the society. The increase in the number ofNGOs and the range ofactivities ofthese NGOs, has calledforan understanding on the uniqueness, management practices and the factors contributing to their success.The need not only comes from the organisations themselves but also from the various stakeholders oftheseNGOs. Research in this sector has thrown light on the diversity ofNGOs and ·the distinctive sectoralcharacteristics. This paper explores the understanding ofNGOs, features that bring uniqueness in theseNGOs and the critical success factors. Focus group discussion and a qualitative research method havebeen used to bring out the factors. Based on the factors revealed by the FGD, a model ofcritical successfactors has been developed

Key Words: Non Governmental Organisations, Critical Success Factors, Voluntarism,Management Practices.

INTRODUCTION

N ON Governmental Organisations are gaining allattention in the recent years in India, mainly dueto the increase in the number ofNGOs and also

because of the intervention of NGOs in everyconceivable area of the society. Over the past decadethe number ofNGOs have grown to play an increasinglyimportant part to meet the needs ofthe society. Accordingto the Planning Commission of India (June 2005), thereare 16430 recognised charities and a total of 1.2 millioncharities (PRIA, 2002). The central government fundingto these organisations exceeds Rs.I0 billion (VANI,2001).

Each NGO is so unique that it is difficult to bringall of them onto one common platform. NGOs aredistinguished on the bases of their size, origin,philosophy, ideological or religious affinities, economicstrength, funding, beneficiaries, management practices,functional diversity, legal .status, level of operation etc.,(Mohanty and Singh, Voluntary Action Network India,2001).

Each NGO has a different style of functioning,perhaps due to the fact that these NGOs are organiseddifferently. There are NGOs organised either bygovernment, religious entities, corporate or independentof any other body. They range from indigenous tointernational. These organisations exists in differentforms, they are Societies, Trusts and CharitableCompanies. There are countless number of voluntaryorganisations which are active at the grass root level,but have no legal entity, i.e., they are not formallyregistered under any act. Around 50 per cent of theorganisations in India remain unregistered (RajeshTandon and Srivastava S.S., 2003).

NGOs basically work for social and communitydevelopment and the interest areas being literacy,education, health, child and women welfare,environment, advocacy, animal welfare, volunteerpromotion etc.

Being a major force in the society to bring aboutsocial change, each NGO claims to be successful andhaving met their objectives. The success claimed by these

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16• ..~ridhar and Nagabhushanam

NGOs is a reality or a perception remains to be examined.Unlike business, where success is measured in terms ofsales or profits, NGOs success is not easy to measure.NGOs do not aim at a measurable goal like profit. Theirobjective is more to do with social transformation amongtargeted beneficiaries through voluntary work. However,few of the aspects susceptible for measurement arebeneficiary satisfaction which enables identification ofgaps in providing services. Productivity, money spentetc., are also some measures which can be used tounderstand success of these NGOs.

There are efforts everywhere to streamline the NGOsand to make NGOs result oriented. The main thrust ofthe various confederations in India that provide acommon platform for NGOs is to focus on qualityappraisal of its member NGOs so as to enhance theirperformance potentials. There are a lot more NGOconsultants who are working on injectingprofessionalism into the NGOs.

In this context, this research aims at understandingthe unique features and the reasons for diversity amongNGOs. If NGOs claim themselves as successful, whatare those factors which arc critical to the success ofN(jOs.

Review of Literature

Literature on non governmental organisations identifiesthe unique characteristics of such organisations andemphasises the need for extending management theoriesand management research to this sector. Accompanyingthe growth of these NGOs, there has also been a shift ofemphasis in thinking, from a need to justify theirexistence to a concern for effective managementpractices within a now established sector (Butler andWilson, 1990). Osborne says, "there is increasing needof voluntary organisations to manage and to beaccountable as they take on an enlarged role in servicedelivery" (1996).

According to Hudson (1995) "all too often peoplefrom both the private and public sector believe or makethe implicit assumption, that their management theoriesshould be applied to third sector organisations to makethem more effective. However, they are often of limitedvalue because they fail to recognise that the critical issuesare different in third sector organisations." The argumentof Hudson brings out the point that these organisationsare unique and the issues of these organisations aredifferent from that of government or business.

Paton and Cornforth (1992) discussed thedifferences between the voluntary and other sectors andidentified four main areas of divergence - distinctivepurpose, resource acquisition, stakeholders andgovernance, and culture. Tassie et al., (1996) brings outthe unique characteristics of non governmentalorganisations as commitment to organisational values;lack of market mechanism; vague, multiple and difficultto measure objectives; chronic resource scarcity. Beattieet al., (2002) says, "the nature of the voluntary sectorand the unique characteristics of voluntary organisationsnot only impact the development of voluntary sectormanagement theory but also research design, ethics andpractices adopted for empirical studies." Dichter (1989)argues that NGOs often spend more time on fancy ideasabout participatory development than on the nuts andbolts of basic management -- such as hiring the rightstaff, planning and budgeting and ensuring effectivesystems for the maintenance of their vehicles.Organisational problems in NGOs arise from thedistinctive structural characteristics of the third sectororganisations, requiring management ideas to bedeveloped through further research on the sector ratherthan through 'one size fits all' solutions imported fromthe wider management field (David Lewis, 2003).

Methodology

To explore the range of opinions and views about theuniqueness and success factors of NGOs, Focus GroupDiscussion, a qualitative research method was adopted.

Focus Groups

A Focus Group Discussion is a form of qualitativeresearch, commonly used by market research agencies,in which a group ofpeople are asked about their attitudetowards a product, service, concept, advertisement,idea, or packaging. In. social sciences, focus groupsallow to study people in a more natural setting than aone-to-one interview. Creation of ideas and comparisonof perspectives generated by group interaction mayprovide a broader picture of the phenomena beingstudied. Focus groups are a qualitative techniqueallowing for 'the explicit use of group interaction toproduce data and insights that would be less accessiblewithout the interaction found in a group,' focus groupsare an excellent method at establishing the why behindthe what in participant perspectives (Morgan, 1990).Focus groups allow for participant focus overresearcher emphasis. FGDs have the flexibility to

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explore beyond the boundaries of tightly wordedquestions and allow for rich, experiential data to evolve.This gives the research high face validity and the resultsare generally easy to understand and presented fromthe perspectives of the participants accessed togetherin a social setting (Denise Threfall, 1999). FGD is oneof the traditional qualitative research techniques andwas born out of pure necessity in the late 193Os. Focusgroups arc characteristically best suited for assessmentof attitudes and cognition topics. Many researchers usefocus groups as an initial appraisal technique prior tolarger research programmes.

FGD though can provide greater insights into theproblem in question, it suffers from certain disadvantageslike too often the group finds its own agenda and themoderator will have" difficult time in bringing theparticipants to the topic being researched. The artificialenvironment concocted for the focus group is anothermajor drawback. Data are not collected in the naturalsetting but rather in a facility created, hence focus groupsfall short and an element of residual uncertainty of dataaccuracy occurs.

'[his FGD on critical success factors of NGOs wasa part of the preliminary study on NGOs so as to developrelevant research hypotheses for a research study on themanagement practices of NGOs. Twelve participantsparticipated in the discussion. Of the total number ofparticipants seven represented the NGOs. Theseparticipants either were running their own NGOs or theyheld key positions in the NGOs. The representation wasfrom NGOs working in different interest areas of thesociety. Five participants were from the academicbackground, and had research experience in the NGOarea. The discussion was held for four hours. The FGDwas facilitated by the researcher leading the discussion.A Discussion Guide was prepared and the followingdiscussion questions were included:

1. What are the characteristics of Indian NGOs?

2. How are non governmental organisations different?How are they unique in terms of management,practices and nature?

3. What are those factors which are critical to thesuccess ofNG·Os?

There was an open atmosphere and every discussantwas given an opportunity and ample time to express his/her opinion or views. The focus group discussion wasrecorded and further transcribed. From the transcription,the findings were extracted.

Findings of the Study

As the discussants were both academicians and NGOrepresentatives, diverse opinions were brought out.However, there was unanimity on most of the issuespertaining to the NGOs. The following are the factorsbrought out in the discussion:

Uniqueness

All participants accepted that NGOs are uniqueorganisations and they cannot be compared either to thebusiness or government organisations. NGOs becomelegal entities through registration either as a not-for­profit corporate, a society or a trust. Whereas,considering the dynamics ofNGOs, the uniqueness doesnot come from legal status, Legally they are all the same,whether a religious organisation running an engineeringcollege or a small NGO carrying out community basedrehabilitation in a small village.

It was argued that uniqueness ofNGOs comes fromcommitment for a cause, voluntary spirit, selfmotivation,strong internal vision, people skills and culture. Therewas a strong suggestive point from the NGOrepresentatives that uniqueness of NGOs is astrength,and not a weakness. They also felt that if we try to makeall NGOs to look similar then we would kill theindividuality of NGOs.

Diversity

NGO representatives brought out that today in India,NGOs are highly diverse and there are many types ofNGOs namely the BONGOs, PONGOs or GONGOs.The big NGOs like Myrada or Oxfam, the professionallyorganised NGOs like Pradhan or Action Aid and a lotmore government organised NGOs. It was said thatNGOs come in all shapes, colours and sizes. They havedifferent ideological colours and they cannot be broughtunder one platform.

Space

One of the academic participants questioned the NGOrepresentatives, ifNGOs should have a space of its ownand particularly acceptable to the government. In thesense that the niche has to be an area where there isdichotomy in the government or government is not in aposition to work in that area. NGO representatives'emphasised that NGOs have a space but it is notnecessary that it should be in dichotomy to government

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18,. Sridhar and Nagabhushanam

and accepted that, it is a fact that NGOs do not fill thedeficit of the government. NGOs do, what governmentcannot do. For example, in agricultural sector, theagricultural extension officers have the zeal andenthusiasm to work in the interest of the farmers, but forsome reason they do not have people skills. They can't

'organise people. NGOs have these skills and they arealso committed to social change. NGOs steps in to savethe government. That is the reason why governmentsubcontracts, co-opts or sometimes gives in totally toNGOs. Government has also been asking NGOs to formSelf Help Groups.

, So what distinguishes NGOs from government arethe people skills. Now, government has realised that thepath to poverty alleviation and development is the SHGs.The SHGs by CNDP, Anganwadi workers or StreeShakti's formed by government may not work asefficiently as the SHGs ofNGOs. In many areas of socialdevelopment, the government has opened its hands toNGOs.

they want to bring about social change. They aregenuinely altruistic:

A researcher recognised that there are two types ofNGOs namely, agenda driven and vision driven. Theagenda driven organisations start just because there is afunding available either from the government or fromInternational funding agencies. Whereas, in case ofvision driven NGOs they start with a vision and thestructure evolves naturally and agenda is a by-productof that vision.

Missionary Zeal

It was also reiterated that there is a necessity to viewvoluntary organisations from a historical perspective.Examples of organisations with missionary zeal werenamed and their success stories were naiTated. It wasemphasised that voluntary organisations that succeededin India are those that have had a missionary zeal.

Working with the Government

It was also questioned by the academic representativeson 'why NGOs hesitate to work with the localgovernment.' It was asked if NGOs do not believe indemocracy. It was also pointed out that someorganisations are not ready to take funds from thegovernment just because if they do take funds they haveto work with the government. NGO representatives alsoaccepted that sometimes the support of the governmentis necessary. There are also examples of governmentabusing NGOs in many forms. Government out-sourcesNGOs paying a very small amount almost one tenth ofthe normal rates. If NGOs are merely motivated by anexternal factor such as the government grant, such NGOscan not sustain in the long run and they evaporate over aperiod of time. But it was accepted that in some situationsthe support of government is necessary to implementthe projects.

Structure

As the academic participants were mostly from theManagement background they raised the issue of thestructure of the organisation. There was a perfect matchbetween the perception of the academic participants andthe experience of the NGO participants. It was broughtout that there is structural difference between a NGOand a Business Organisation. A business organisationnormally has a formal structure whereas in an NGO thestructure is loosely held. NGOs have a strong informalstructure. The cross functional links in a business whichis much talked about these days, have been adopted byNGOs long back. The NGOs do not work on functionallines but work with a vision. Most of the NGO work isat the grass-root level and hence mostly operine in thefields.

However, few NGO representatives also felt that inthe present day context where the NGO's numbers aregrowing, there is a need to structure a system for everyorganisation.

Value DeliveryThere was unanimity in accepting that NGOs have avision and it is in the form of a craving to bring about For a complaint by the academic participant that somesocial change. But it is rarely spoken and expressed. NGOs are motivated merely by an external factor suchNGO representatives felt that vision does not come as the government grant or funds from governmentexternally but that it is very strong within. There may be agencies. For this the NGO representatives felt that therefew organisations, around 25 per cent where the vision are such NGOs but they can not sustain in the long run.is externally imposed, but for 75 per cent of the NGOs Only those NGOs who have deep roots in society andin India, the urge is within, they have started just because those that are true service and value delivery

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Vision

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NGOs in India- Uniqueness and Critical Success Factors, Results ofan FGD • 19

organisations can sustain the uniqueness of NGOs.NGOs that are serving at the grass-roots are able todeliver to true value to the beneficiaries and hence, valuedelivery was identified as one of the key factors forsuccess.

Voluntarism vs. Professionalism

The views with respect to voluntarism andprofessionalism were divergent. Though there wasacceptance of the fact that NGOs should have the truespirit of voluntarism, the views were different withrespect to whether NGOs need to be professionalisedor not. NGO representatives felt that there was a greatdeal of voluntarism in early voluntary organisations, andtoday to be successful these organisations should goback to their voluntary spirit. Few of them felt thatcorporate culture and professionalism in largeinternational organisations is shaking the voluntarymovement in India and is shattering the very fabric ofthe voluntary spirit ofNGOs in India today.

It was also felt that earlier NGOs were small andhad very little money, they thrived with voluntarism andit was a passion. Today, the scale of funding hasincreased 50 fold. Earlier, NGOs had a budget of fourto five lakhs per annum. Today, NGOs have a budget offour to five crores. There were no large resources to bemanaged. Slowly these organisations have startedgrowing, have branched out, and have startedmanufacturing and selling, bringing in design expertsetc., they have also started using internet, web designetc. All these have replaced voluntarism byprofessionalism and also increased the dependence ondonors. At the same time, few felt that professionalismis not an alien to the NGO sector and in fact every NGOis professional. It was also felt that the meaning ofprofessionalism is not properly interpreted. Hence,NGOs need voluntarism on one hand and also need tobe professional in their approach. However, others stillfelt that voluntarism should not be replaced byprofessionalism; once it is replaced an NGO may loseits ground.

Culture and Values

There was a strong voice to the fact that, the managementin NGOs stems from culture. One NGO representativefelt that though these organisations are not very familiarwith the management terminology, each organisationhas a distinct culture and uses the best method that suitsthe organisation culture and the situation. It was felt that

NGOs survive and succeed only because the thread ofculture and values bonds all those volunteers who workfor these NGOs.

Leadership and Succession

Coming to the issue of leadership as a factor for success,NGO representatives felt that in a vision driven NGOthe leader is a visionary. The success of NGO dependson how well the leader articulates the vision to the restof his group that is involved in voluntary work. Theacademic participants felt that only the founder leaderw'ould be a visionary and the second rung of leaderswould lose their sense of the vision and objectivity, hencethe culture of the organisation cannot be furthered. NGOrepresentatives said that it is a challenge to develop asecond rung of leaders. In a NGO the baton has to bepassed on through the culture only. Succession is a weaklink in these organisations, hence, long term survival andsuccess of NGOs gets affected.

However, NGO representatives said that VisionaryLeadership is one which makes one successful NGOdifferent from the rest.

Other Factors

There were also few other points emphasised in the courseof the discussion. The NGO representatives also said thatorganisations that are more specialised and those whichhave a focused objective are successful. Another factorthat got mentioned was to understand needs of the targetbeneficiaries for the success of the programmes of anNGO.

The whole question of success of these NGOs beinga perception or reality remained. NGO representativesfelt that these organisations normally claim to besuccessful and never speak of failures. NGOs deal withmore serious issues compared to that of corporateorganisations. When it comes to objective analysis,NGOs do not see whether what they have done is rightor wrong. NGOs normally do not have the time, patienceor skills to assess themselves. An NGO index is verymuch essential to measure the organisation's success.Instead of a norm reference it is necessary to develop acriterion reference. This criterion reference should beused by NGOs for selfappraisal. NGOs are perhaps beingglorified; and there is a possibility that they are causingharm to the society.

Few other representatives from the NGOs felt thatwhatever programmes we do to the beneficiaries are

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20 • Sridhar and Nagabhushanam

certainly measurable. There are measures to measure thesuccess ofNGOs. But these measures are both tangibleand intangible. To understand the work of these NGOsthere is a need to use both the measures. It was also saidthat measurement of success can also be done taking theinputs, outputs and efficiency into consideration.Technology was considered as one supplement tomeasure success.

Conceptual Model on NGOs Uniqueness andCritical Success Factors

The above discussion of the fmdings reveals that NGOsare unique organisations and have a totally differentapproach in thinking and functioning. It also brings outthe fact that there are definitely certain factors thatcontribute to the success of the NGOs. These factors canbe classified into two categories namely the hard factorsthat are measurable and the soft factors that are difficultto measure.

Critical Success Factors of NGOs

Soft Factors . Hard Factors

Vision Structure

Missionary zeal Size

Distinct culture Objectives

Leadership Focus

Value delivery Targets

Shared values Funding

Succession Professionalism

Unique space Government support

NGOs are unique organisations and their uniquenesscomes from the factors like Vision, Voluntarism, Space,Culture, Leadership, Succession, Missionary Zeal, ValueDelivery to the Society, Sharing of Values, InheritedCulture etc., and these unique factors ofsuccess are listedabove as the soft factors. The hard factors are thosefactors that are essential but giving excess attention tothese factors may make NGOs lose their uniqueness.Such factors include Structure, Size, Short TermObjectives and Targets, Funds, Professionalism,Government Support, Sector-wise Specialisation,Working with Partners etc. It can also be said that thehard factors are tangible and the soft factors areintangible.

However, one should realise that success of an NGOis not an instant outcome of its efforts. It has to passthrough different phases, right from establishment, tostability and later it can accomplish or achieve success.Though all factors are important" the importance given tothe factors vary from one phase to another. The fact isthat all factors contribute in different phases of the journeyto success. Taking into account the literature on uniquenessand diversity amongst NGOs and the findings ofthe focusgroup discussion, here is an effort to develop a model ofcritical success factors of NGOs. This model shows thatthere are a host of success factors and all these factors arerequired through all stages of an NGO. The model depictsthree stages namely, Establishment Stage, ContinuedExistence or Survival Stage and the Success Stage.Though all the factors are needed for success, few aremore important in the establishment stage, few in thesurvival stage and few others in the success stage.

I Stage of an NGO IJourney to Critical Success Factors

Success

ObjectivesSize

I Phase I Establishment .. StructureProfessionalismFundingGovernment Support

ContinuedFocusIPhase II [- Vision

Existence Missionary Zeal(Survival) Articulation of Vision

Depth of Voluntarism

Success! IUnique Space

I Phase IIIInherited Distinct Culture

Accomplishment I Visionary LeadershipSuccessionSharing of ValuesValue Delivery to Society

Proposed Model of Critical Success Factors

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NGOs in India- Uniqueness and Critical Success Factors, Results ofan FGD .21 .

The above model brings out certain importantdimensions of NGOs in India. There is an attempt toidentify what is important for NGOs and what reallydetermines the success of NGOs. It also explains nofactor can be ignored at any point of time but theemphasis on these factors varies depending on the phaseof the journey to success. However, this is only an initialmodel which may help NGOs and researchers to lookinto the success factors at various stages of the journeyof NGOs towards success.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the participants of the Focus GroupDiscussion held on 25th September 2006 with whosecontribution this article is made possible.

Ms.Indumathi Rao- Director, CBR Network

Dr. Poornima Vyasulu- Director, CBPS Bangalore

Prof. Shankarnarayan-Professor, Acharya Instituteof Management

Col.Murthy Rajan- Chief Operating Officer,Akshara Foundation

Dr. Venkatesh H.R.- Professor, Dayanand SagarInstitute of Management

Mr. Sripad Rao- Director, Hindu Seva Prathishtana

Mr. Srinivas- Hindu Seva Prathishtana

Mr. Venkatesh- Founder Director, ChandanaArtFoundation

Mr.Srikanth- Founder Director, 18th HorseFoundation

Mr. Manjunath- Vice President, is- HorseFoundation

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M. K. Sridhar (bharathvasi@vsnl.net) is Reader at the Canara Bank School of Management Studies, Post Graduate Department ofManagement, Bangalore University. He has 29 years of experience in teaching Communication and Managerial Skills, MarketingManagement, Marketing of Services, Compensation Management, Training and Development, Business Ethics and BusinessNegotiations.

Manasa Nagabhushanam (manasa_sudarshan@yahoo.com) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Studies atPESIT. She has an academic experience of 19 years and is the Editor of PES Business Review, a Peer Reviewed Journal of Management.

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